Victor Record (U.S.A.) / 1911

Design: As an earlier design except that the price (around the spindle hole) is marked in U.S. funds. The design would be radically revised in 1912 (see previous page).

History: Emile Berliner, the Jewish-American developer of the 'wax' disc, maintained a good working relationship with Eldridge Johnson, the supplier of spring-wound motors which powered Victor's phonographs (to whom Berliner had sold his fledgling company in 1898), and after moving to Montreal, became Victor's sales agent in Canada. The music track By the Saskatchewan, above) was written for the film The Pink Lady (1911), which was set in Paris. The song is about a lover who has sworn to remain faithful for life to a beautiful girl who waits for him by the Saskatchewan River in Canada, and to return to her one day. As he lingers by the banks of the River Seine, in the company of a pretty French girl, he is finding it hard to keep to his word. Yet in the end he knows that it would be difficult to ask a sophisticated Parisienne to emigrate to far-distant Canada.

By the banks of the Seine with a girl so beautiful
It seems one's tame to remain quite dutiful!
And yet I've sworn by the stars above
Throughout my life to return for my love
For a girl by the Saskatchewan, for a girl by the Saskatchewan.
But the girls by the Seine all come canoodling* --
They're bold and vain, with a taste for snoodling!**
Their lips are red and their eyes are bright
And they've got a style that removes from sight
A girl by the Saskatchewan, yes, a girl by the Saskatchewan.
Flow, river, flow down to the sea
Brightly bring my loved one home to see!
True, dear, ah true I'm trying hard to be,
But hear me say, it's a very long, long way,
From the banks of the Seine for a girl to go and stay
By the banks of the Saskatchewan!